Meijburg Art Commission 2017 Nominees

by UnseenJuly 25 2017

Meijburg & Co and Unseen are delighted to reveal the nominees for the third edition of the Meijburg Art Commission. Five exceptional multimedia artists whose work focuses on photography were selected from a call aimed at the exhibiting galleries of Unseen Amsterdam 2017. The winning artist will be selected by an international jury consisting of Wilbert Kannekens (Chairman of the Managing Board of Meijburg & Co, NL), Susan Bright (curator and writer, UK) and W.M. Hunt, (lecturer on the art of collecting, adjunct professor at the School of Visual Art, New York and author, USA.)

The winning artist for the commission will be announced at Unseen Amsterdam on Friday the 22nd of September. The selected artist will be given a production fund to produce a new art work for the Meijburg & Co office in Amstelveen. With this commission emerging artists receive career support and the opportunity to expand in their specific discipline.

Jannemarein Renout
“If time and space is what we are, then what are we? To visualise this condition is a start how to approach this question."

Jannemarein Renout (1969, NL) graduated in 2014 from the Gerrit Rietveld Academie with the project 'SCAN2400'. Her work focuses on visualising the flow of time captured in a single image without the use of intention or composition. The project ‘SCAN2400’ was nominated for the Steenbergen Stipendium 2014. Renout has exhibited at the Nederlands Fotomuseum (Rotterdam, NL), Les Boutographies (Montpellier, FR), Kelderman en Van Noort (Eindhoven, NL), Claudia Sträter & Dutch Art Shop Window Exhibition (Amsterdam/ Groningen/ Rotterdam/ Antwerp/ Brussels, NL/ BE). Recently her work has been selected by Les Boutographies (Montpellier, FR) and has been nominated for the Les Boutographies Award.

Nico Krijno (1981, ZA) is a South African artist who lives and works in Cape Town. With a background in theatre and experimental video, Nico Krijno moved to the field of visual arts in 2008. His performance based photographic practice is realised in a variety of media, from sculpture to participatory installation and video. Exploring the space between photography, painting and sculpture, Krijno carves a unique path through abstract photographic image making.

Pasi Orrensalo
“As an artist, I am always looking for new stimuli to inspire my work. The Meijburg Art Commission would challenge me to focus on my creative process and specifically on an autonomous piece.”

Pasi Orrensalo (1969, FI) is an artist who uses photography to tell stories that are filtered through his distinctive view on life. His work focuses on the narratives of his subjects’ past and future. Orrensalo is represented by Galerie Mirko Mayer in Cologne and Shoot Gallery in Oslo. He will be exhibited at Unseen Amsterdam 2017 with Galerie Mirko Mayer.

Ton Zwerver
“The identity of the place can play an important role in my practice. Most of my work is carried out on location, so I never have an exact idea of what I am going to make.”

Ton Zwerver (1951, NL) is an artist living and working in Amsterdam. From 1978-1983 he studied at the Gerrit Rietveld Akademie and from 1983-1986 he was artist in residence at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam. Since 1989 he has been teaching sculpture at the Gerrit Rietveld Akademie. His temporary sculptures are based on objects, spaces and stories found on private or public land, which he then makes images of. Zwerver’s work can be found in many public and private art collections both in the Netherlands and abroad.

Yoshinori Mizutani
“I believe that the Meijburg Art Commission will give me a great opportunity to show my work to a wider audience and it would become a wonderful trigger to broaden my artistic activities.”

Yoshinori Mizutani (1987, JP), attended the Tokyo College of Photography after graduating from Nihon University College of Economics. In 2014, he was selected for the LensCulture Emerging Talents Award Top 50 and the Foam Magazine Talent Call. His foray into photography is fairly recent, starting 5 years ago. Nonetheless, his photographs demonstrate an innate understanding of how forms, colours, textures and depth translate to the pictorial plane. He is working with a visual vocabulary that has been well established by the work of many photographers active today.